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Bill Buxton is a researcher in
MSR. I got the chance to sit down with him recently to learn about user experience from the design guru himself.

His bio:

"Bill Buxton is a designer and a researcher concerned with human aspects of technology. His work reflects a particular interest in the use of technology to support creative activities such as design, film making and music. Buxton's research specialties include
technologies, techniques and theories of input to computers, technology mediated human-human collaboration, and ubiquitous computing. "

"I spend a lot of my time thinking ..." Indeed, it seems that in Microsoft there is a lot of (really lots of) thinking but ... little doing. You might be thinking about new innovative designs but it is Apple which produced the IPhone and not Microsoft.
It is apple which produced the IPod and not Microsoft. It is Google which first produced the better interface to online maps and it is first Google which acquired and introduced the great 3d Google Earth software. And it is first Google which innovated on
the web mail design interface and not Microsoft, all though it had lots of Hotmail users, years and research thinking time to "think about it".Whilst, Microsoft Tablet PC has not been a success. Media Center has barely succeeded and its Media Extendors
have been a complete failure. Xbox 360 is being outsold by the WEE partly because of the WEE's new type of motion-sensing controllers, although Microsoft had done lots and lots of user interface "thinking" before producing the 360. And what is happening with
the once "innovative" SPOT technology? MSN Wrist Watches remember? Finally, Zune is still a joke and even incompatible with Microsoft's Plays for Sure, even one year after its release. Where was the "thinking" there?I am not saying that everything the competition
does is better of course. But with these points I am trying to raise a simple and honest question that you should be able to answer: Where is all that thinking going? In other words: What is wrong with the company? Why does Microsoft appear at least
to fail where its competitors are successful?

﻿"I spend a lot of my time thinking ..." Indeed, it seems that in Microsoft there is a lot of (really lots of) thinking but ... little doing. You might be thinking about new innovative designs but it is Apple which produced the IPhone
and not Microsoft. It is apple which produced the IPod and not Microsoft. It is Google which first produced the better interface to online maps and it is first Google which acquired and introduced the great 3d Google Earth software. And it is first Google
which innovated on the web mail design interface and not Microsoft, all though it had lots of Hotmail users, years and research thinking time to "think about it".Whilst, Microsoft Tablet PC has not been a success. Media Center has barely succeeded and its
Media Extendors have been a complete failure. Xbox 360 is being outsold by the WEE partly because of the WEE's new type of motion-sensing controllers, although Microsoft had done lots and lots of user interface "thinking" before producing the 360. And what
is happening with the once "innovative" SPOT technology? MSN Wrist Watches remember? Finally, Zune is still a joke and even incompatible with Microsoft's Plays for Sure, even one year after its release. Where was the "thinking" there?I am not saying that everything
the competition does is better of course. But with these points I am trying to raise a simple and honest question that you should be able to answer: Where is all that thinking going? In other words: What is wrong with the company? Why does Microsoft appear
at least to fail where its competitors are successful?

﻿ "I spend a lot of my time thinking ..." Indeed, it seems that in Microsoft there is a lot of (really lots of) thinking but ... little doing. You might be thinking about new innovative designs but it is Apple which produced the
IPhone and not Microsoft. It is apple which produced the IPod and not Microsoft. It is Google which first produced the better interface to online maps and it is first Google which acquired and introduced the great 3d Google Earth software. And it is first
Google which innovated on the web mail design interface and not Microsoft, all though it had lots of Hotmail users, years and research thinking time to "think about it".Whilst, Microsoft Tablet PC has not been a success. Media Center has barely succeeded
and its Media Extendors have been a complete failure. Xbox 360 is being outsold by the WEE partly because of the WEE's new type of motion-sensing controllers, although Microsoft had done lots and lots of user interface "thinking" before producing the 360.
And what is happening with the once "innovative" SPOT technology? MSN Wrist Watches remember? Finally, Zune is still a joke and even incompatible with Microsoft's Plays for Sure, even one year after its release. Where was the "thinking" there?I am not saying
that everything the competition does is better of course. But with these points I am trying to raise a simple and honest question that you should be able to answer: Where is all that thinking going? In other words: What is wrong with the company? Why does
Microsoft appear at least to fail where its competitors are successful?

I get what you're saying. I've felt like that about MS too and I'm guessing it has something to do with the company just being too big and over-thinking stuff instead of just doing it. They're also hindered by having to deal with so much legal junk ever time
they even think about making a new product so the creative people get disappointed when they can't create the products they want and the final product ends up being a watered down version of their original vision. It's like creating art by committee, it works
but it's never as good as what they originally envisioned. It also doesn't help that Microsoft is not very good at marketing.

ALSO, on a related note:I wish they'd stop trying to conquer every market and just concentrate on doing a few things really well because they definitely have the resources and the talented employees to do that but maybe they're putting too much effort and "thought" into too many different
areas. Bill talked about taking out stuff from software and avoiding feature creep so maybe they should stop expanding to avoid doing the same with the company.The many different versions of Vista is a good example of Miscrosoft's people (I don't know which division that would be) over-thinking instead of just releasing one OS for regular PCs and one OS for servers. (not taking in to account
he embeded and mobile stuff which is quite different)

By the way... If avoiding feature creep was what lead to the overly dumbed down Vista photo import wizard, then I'm all for feature creep At least Live Photo Gallery fixes that problem.

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